Subnautica on Steam with the Oculus Rift

Subnautica is now available on Oculus Home, but the Steam version has stopped working with Oculus VR. Don’t worry, this is only temporary. Here’s an explanation from Max as to why it has happened, and how it will start working again:

“The Steam version of Subnautica is currently only compatible with the pre-1.0 Rift SDK.  Once players have the shipping Rift or upgrade the firmware on their DK2s they will not be able to play on that version. I’m pretty sure that it won’t even recognize that you have a Rift and it will just run in 2D mode.”

We currently have an internal version of Subnautica that runs on the new Rift SDK. Once it has completed essential testing, we will release it publicly and you will be able to play Subnautica on Steam with an Oculus Rift.

Here’s some further Q&A with Max about what’s going on with Subnautica VR:

Q: Why can’t I play on Steam with my Rift?

A: We’ll be releasing a patch to Steam soon that enables Steam players to use the Rift. We have a lot of players on Steam and we need to make sure releasing VR support doesn’t negatively affect their desktop experience.

Q: Why is there no intro sequence in the Rift version?

A: The intro sequence in the game automatically moves the player around the scene. When experienced in VR this makes players feel ill. We’re working on ways to make the intro available in VR as well, but this will take some time since it requires a different approach.

Q: I found a bug. How do I report it?

A: Subnanutica is still in early access so there are bound to be a lot of bugs, especially with the initial release of new features like VR and controller support. Our forums are a great place to report issues and get help.

Q: Will Subnautica support <some other VR device>?

A: We may support other VR devices in the future. Right now the Rift is the only device available to players so that’s our focus.

Q: Will Subnautica support hand tracking with the Touch controllers?

A: When the Touch controllers are available we’ll investigate how they might be used in the VR experience.